Disputes Over Your Teen's Dress: Another Aspect of Adolescence

Disputes over the way your teenager dresses is just one aspect of the journey through adolescence.

Young children dress to please their parents, but young adolescents dress to please their friends and older teenagers dress to please themselves. Teenagers are searching for their own identity during adolescence. Experimentation with clothing is just one way they incorporate in this search.

Your teen may, for example, dress like a street urchin in worn out, oversized, old clothes for one school term. Then he or she may change and dress like a teen executive in conservative suits and carry a briefcase for another school term.

Variations of this sort do not signify insecurity. They are simply the visible indication of experimentation with several different identities.

Young men who wear their pants so they appear to be falling off their hips and teenagers who pierce various parts of their bodies are some of the more current and flamboyant displays of the age-old and perfectly normal process of the search for identity.

Some of the reason parents have such a problem tolerating what their teens wear could be attributed to their concern over what their children's dress says about the parents rather than about the teens.

One solution to conflicts over dress may be to consult a third party whose opinion is valued by the parent and the teen. This may be the teen 's older cousin or someone both parties feel dresses fashionably.

Another suggestion may be to strike a compromise.

In such an arrangement, the parent and teen may agree that while the teen is with friends, he or she may make a fashion statement by dressing in clothing the parent considers outlandish. Then when the parent and teenager are out in public together, the teen may wear something he or she considers "boring" and the parent considers appropriate.

Experimentation with dress is only a passing phase. When putting things into perspective, remember there are far worse issues affecting our teens; we should be concerned about those things rather than what clothes they wear.